Bill Issa and two cohorts attacked a restaurateur with a long metal torch, repeatedly hitting the man before he collapsed. It was one of multiple attacks on various victims. Photo: Supplied/Channel Ten

All of his victims were former clients, or lawyers representing former clients, who had threatened legal action against the construction manager when Issa failed to deliver on his work as promised.

Judge Peter Zahra sentenced Issa to a minimum nine years jail on Monday, saying that the 53-year-old builder wanted to send a "clear message to the victims that they should discontinue proceedings".

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The judge told Sydney's District Court that Issa was emboldened by the success of his initial firebomb attack, carried out in March 2013.

"The conduct amounts to a campaign of fear and intimidation," Judge Zahra said.

Issa was found guilty over five firebomb attacks on clients' homes. Photo: Supplied

Three of the victims were disgruntled customers of Issa's, unhappy with shopfitting and renovation work he had performed. Another was the lawyer of one of the complainants. All targetswere connected to legal proceedings against him.

One of his victims was an inner-city restaurateur who was in dispute with Issa about whether or not an exhaust fan had been installed in his premises.

Five days before the June 6, 2013 Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal hearing, Issa and two other men attacked the man in a lift as he took rubbish to his restaurant basement.

Issa used a long metal torch to repeatedly hit the restauranteur before the man collapsed.

"Whilst short-lived, the attack was ferocious," Judge Zahra told the court. "The attack on the victim was an attack by cowards."

Another of Issa's victims told the District Court that her family had employed Issa to renovate their family home.

When the family complained to the Consumer, Trader and Tenancy Tribunal about Issa's work, Issa responded by throwing Molotov cocktails at the family's home late one night.

The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court the attack had scarred her seven-year-old son. Since the attack, the young boy has undergone therapy and refuses to sleep alone.

"The now nine-year-old had been playing out all sorts of scenarios in his head at night – all of which ended badly," the woman told the court in a victim's impact statement.

"All because he felt Bill was going to come back and finish the job.

"When asked about why he acted the way he did when his parents went out, he simply said he thought he would die."

No one was physically injured in the bombings and there was no significant property damage, but the two clients were so frightened that they withdrew their cases against Issa.

When police searched Issa's Kemps Creek property and his business premises, they found Corona bottles with the same date and batch number as those used in the attacks, as well as Bob the Builder bedsheets.

Two victims found scraps of the same sheets used as wicks in the firebombs.

Issa pleaded guilty to assaulting the restaurateur, and will be first eligible for parole in February 2024.